Industry
Industry Groups Slam Government Travel Cut Initiative
By Leo Jakobson
July 21, 2010
The heads of the U.S. Travel Association and National Business Travel Association reacted angrily yesterday to a White House announcement that President Barack Obama has directed government agencies to sharply reduce business travel.
On Tuesday, the President called for the reduction as part of a new push to reduce indirect carbon emissions produced by government employees. He set a goal the government greenhouse gas emissions 13 percent by 2020.
“Discouraging business travel is short-sighted and counterproductive,” said Roger Dow, president and CEO of the U.S. Travel Association (USTA). “This type of arbitrary and across-the-board approach will further economic decline at precisely the wrong time for the more than two million Americans whose jobs depend on business travel.”
President Obama's order has re-ignited the 2009 controversy that developed after he warned companies that had accepted bailout funds, “You can't get corporate jets, you can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas, or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayer’s dime,” prompting many public companies to cancel incentive and meeting trips there. The city lost more than $100 million in group business within 90 days, and many corporations—particularly those in the finance and insurance sector—cancelled all incentive programs and many if not all large meetings and events. That in turn led to a travel industry-wide campaign to defend meeting and incentive travel, and produce a study to
quantify its value to the economy. This culminated in a
White House meeting between the President and incentive, meeting, and travel and hospitality industry leaders, and the eventual passage of the
Travel Promotion Act last year.
Dow pointed out that travel and hospitality industry has lost 400,000 jobs in the past two years, and is now facing thousands more along the Gulf Coast due to the BP oil spill.
“President Obama’s recent statements calling for a reduction in government travel are troubling for two reasons,” says Michael McCormick, executive director and COO of the National Business Travel Association (NBTA). “First, they are part of a pattern of negative and misguided comments from the Administration that hurt the travel industry at an incredibly challenging time. Second, they seem to imply that cutting travel is the goal. The goal should be to use travel as cost-effectively as possible to meet the needs of the United States. Instead of unilateral cuts I encourage government agencies to reach out to the industry and learn how to properly manage travel and ‘green’ their travel system.”